Arabian Sea Sharks May be the Most Threatened in the World

Sharks, rays and chimaeras are some of the most threatened fish in the world. More than 50 percent of species in the Arabian Sea are at elevated risk of extinction due to coastal development, overfishing, pollution and habitat destruction. According to an expansive new study, spanning more than a dozen countries, species like sawfish are particularly hard hit with extinction or local extirpation.

"Populations have significantly declined," said Julia Spaet, a postdoctoral researcher at Cambridge University and a coauthor of the new study, published recently in Fish and Fisheries. Unregulated fishing and habitat degradation are largely to blame, she said, exacerbated by limited political will and regional capacity to address the problem. The new study's conclusions are based on data from fishing markets in countries around the Arabian Sea, including India, Iran, Pakistan, Oman, Yemen, Somalia and Sri Lanka.

David Ebert, director of the Pacific Shark Research Center at Moss Landing Marine Laboratories in California, and another coauthor of the study, added that sharks in the Arabian Sea area are particularly important, because many species only live there.

The new research is part of a larger effort by the International Union for Conservation of Nature to reassess population trends for sharks, rays and chimaeras globally. Regional experts met in February 2017 to review the numbers and species of sharks caught and brought into fish markets in the region.

They found that more than 50 percent of sharks (78 of 153 species in the region) face an elevated risk of extinction, a significantly higher proportion than in other areas of the world with regional assessments. Only the Mediterranean has numbers approaching the Arabian Sea's.

Shell’s recent success in the US Gulf of Mexico includes its deepwater Dover discovery on Mississippi Canyon 612, reported last year, near its Appomattox platform. The well was drilled by the Deepwater Poseidon ultra-deepwater drillship. Sources: Shell, Transocean.

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